The Victorian National Parks Association says thousands of horses running wild in the Alpine Region should be culled.

The association is calling on Parks Victoria to hire marksman to cull about 8,000 of the estimated 10,000 wild brumbies in the region's national parks.

The association's Phil Ingamells says Parks Victoria should employ experienced marksman to shoot the animals, because the numbers are out of control.

"Obviously, no-one wants to shoot animals at all," he said.

"My understanding is that the RSPCA has said that they would much prefer that to happen, then track the horses in rough country, running them over rough country then tracking them over really, really rough roads then shoot them."

He says the horses are starving to death and are not equipped to deal with snow and hot weather.

"It is a pest animal. The numbers are so big that the horses are actually suffering up there.

"They're not doing to badly now up there now in a good year, but in times of drought, they die in their thousands.

"You wouldn't allow that on private property. It's really time that the situation was managed."

Parks Victoria's Peter Jacobs says a plan to manage the horses is underway and the community can make submissions.

He says shooting is not one of the options being considered.

"We believe the general community isn't in a position at the moment to consider that as being an acceptable method of control," he said.

"But we do have other options and they include the live removal of captured horse for re-homing on private land, the live removal of horses for sale at saleyards and also the humane euthanasia of captured horses where we capture them on site."